1.7: Writing as Material Practice - Previous and Recent Research

Since the inception of the conference in early 2008, its convening in mid-2009, and in the course of editing this volume, we have learnt of work on material aspects of writing relating, both ancient and modern, which were unfamiliar to us and which we would have been unlikely to discover through usual bibliographic search mechanisms. Nonetheless, at the time of writing, no booklength work exists that takes the materiality of writing as its central theme, nor is there one that draws together a wide range of examples from different cultural contexts. This does not mean that there is no interest in the subject — far from it — but research has been intermittent and dispersed. Traditionally writing has been almost exclusively the realm of philologists, linguists, historians and literary specialists who have been concerned primarily with issues of language and the meaning (in the sense of translation) of texts. Such work is vital, but as recent research is demonstrating, attentiveness to the relationship between scribal practice, materials and tools, and textual meanings is also essential (e.g. Taylor 2011). Other areas of textual studies such as book history and religious studies are increasingly recognising that writing is not a transparent medium of language which needs materiality only at its place of application or illustration, but that “... writing’s very materiality influences the range of interpretive responses and receptions of the text” (Frantz 1998; see also O’Hara et al. 2002).

Within archaeology, ‘writing’ and other forms of ‘visual culture’³ have remained peripheral to discussions of material culture and past human experience. Reconstructed material worlds are populated with pots, lithics and other implements, items of adornment and an array of other objects, but inscriptions, writings, documents, texts, manuscripts, and so on feature all too rarely. Similarly, charting change and continuity in the technologies of past societies represents a core area of archaeological research, and here too the technological aspects of writing production and use as material artefact only make brief appearances, if at all (e.g. Schiffer and Skibo 1987). That technological features and relationships are significant for understanding script appearance, meaning and function has long been recognised within papyrology (e.g. Tait and Leach 2000). The mechanics of writing, from tool use and material selection, as well as posture and the bodily movement of the scribe at work are important for understanding writing technologies. Writers may produce their materials and tools themselves, or acquire them from others (Palaima 1985: 102; 1988: 27; Quirke 2011: 280; Sjöquist and Åström 1991: 7, 20, 29–30; Taylor 2011: 7–12, 21–23). The importance of materiality and technology is also recognised within cuneiform studies. Jonathon Taylor (2011) has recently presented a survey of material aspects of cuneiform clay tablets. While sign morphology may be the primary vehicle of meaning expression, it can also be bound up with other material aspects, such as types of clay, their preparation and use as tablet cores or the sheets of finer clay wrapped around them, overall tablet shape, surface formatting, stylus shape and the techniques of incision or impression. Fuller consideration of writing materials and technologies are crucial to a holistic account of textual and related meanings, from dating to charting processes of change and continuity (Quirke 2011: 280), knowledge transfer and skills acquisition and processes of professionalisation, to aspects of writer or copyist social identity and relationships (e.g. Janssen 1987) within scribal and wider communities of practice. It is within this unfolding discourse that this volume aims to contribute momentum.

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³ This term is used here with an awareness of the importance of other forms of sensory perception.